Should I get a netbook or notebook?

I would probably go netbook... that weight difference sounds trivial until you are carrying it with you. If you need optical media though, you may want to go with a true laptop. Carrying an external drive is not easy, and would offset most weight savings. I don't see many uses for optical drives in this day and age though, so I wouldn't see that as a big concern.

Some of the netbooks come with 3G modems so you can get a contract with cellular company like At&t or Verison and have broadband everywhere you go, but i am not sure how that works with traveling abroad. I would assume that would be lots of roaming minutes so you would want to check before getting a $60,000 phone bill.

Netbook. Get the Asus, not the Acer. I never understood why the Acers became popular. The Asus has better battery life, etc. I think that they have the Asus at Bestbuy. You may need to order it if you want the latest model with the bigger screen, etc. There are a ton of different models.

If you are concerned about Skype, you might consider one of the Skype wifi phones. You don't need a computer for those.

I can't think of why you would need a DVD drive these days.

Has Asus been around for a long time? What is the deal with them? I've only just recently seen their computers at Best Buy.

asus mainboards

Okay I looked up Asus. They seem legit. ;-)

I just got my Asus Eee pc 1005ha. It is a great machine. It has a solid processor, 160GB hard drive, a built in camera, nearly full sized key board, brilliant display and an 8.5 hour battery life when in the lowest power setting. I got mine on amazon.com for $315. It comes with skype on it so you dont have to worry about that.

I went ahead and bought the external cd/dvd reader/writer for about 65 bucks. Its kanda lame that you have to plug it in to watch dvds and read cds, but its worth the weight loss and space saving. The grand total was under $400. Hard to beat that price. It has a 10 in screen but doesnt seem terribly small.

Go with the netbook, you wont be dissapointed. and you can use the extra coin to do cool things in your travels.

You should get a laptop. Netbooks are about the same price and about 1/10th the power.

He doesnt need a super powerful laptop, he said he just needs to browse the web and check email... Besides most good netbooks have 1.6Ghz processors and 1GB of ram. MOre than enough for most people.

I wouldnt trust a regular sized laptop for $300. That would be the most watered down computer ever made. Look... go to this link.

http://reviews.cnet.com/best-laptops/?tag=resourceLeftContainer.0

cnet is amazing at reviewing anything electronic. They rated the Asus Eee PC one of their top 5 LAPTOPS... out of all laptops, even normal sized ones. Its hard to argue with that.

And like i said... about $300 on amazon.com... good luck getting better bang for your buck. Not to mention its so easy to carry around.

Trust me man... you will not be dissapointed.

Go to dealcatcher.com and find 15% off coupon for Dell Outlet. You can get Dell 10" Netbook for about $200.

OMG ! get the Ubuntu Acer ee book. It will never crash. Nor will you have to reboot it several times per day. Don't get Windows for heavens sakes.

Net book.

mine has 3 USB ports. I use skype with it (my netbook even has a built in video camera). Works fine. In fact, it means I do not need a headset (although I use one for privacy).

I travel a lot and the weight difference is worth it.

Only when I needed to load some older software that was only available on a CD did I need the CD/DVD drive. I used an external for that.

I have a Dell (it is work provided).

sony vaio TT is great. the size/weight of a netbook, but with decent processor and not that atom-processor with abysmal performance.

OMG ! wrote:

OMG ! get the Ubuntu Acer ee book. It will never crash. Nor will you have to reboot it several times per day. Don't get Windows for heavens sakes.

Windows XP doesn't crash, and is better than Ubuntu. On top of that, Windows 7 is almost here, and makes Ubuntu look and operate like DOS. Comparably of course.

666 wrote:

Windows XP doesn't crash, and is better than Ubuntu. On top of that, Windows 7 is almost here, and makes Ubuntu look and operate like DOS. Comparably of course.

OMG LOL

Honestly now, if you want a netbook that is like an iPhone, Palm Pilot, Tivo, Treo and never crashes then get an Ubuntu netbook.

This is a good question. Recently The Cup has begun to promote the use of the netbook for internet viewing of the upcoming East Coast Games. Check the web site for retariers and associated promo discount codes.

Right, cause all the quality software is on Ubuntu. This is a straight fact: A very large majority of Ubuntu machines purchased by the general public have been returned for Windows Machines.

Ubuntu is simply a status story for a small niche of computer nerds.

I have no allegiance to ANY company. If he wants a netbook that he can pick up and use without any confusion or limitations, then a Windows netbook is what he wants. It's shame that he can't get one with Windows 7 pre-installed yet.

Not true. Ubuntu is growing by leaps and bounds. It's the fastest growing OS out there. Because of Ubuntu, Apple is jumping on the quality OS bandwagon and is rumored to be releasing next year a OSX software only product for selected PC configrations.